Help Needed Schoolboy In Trouble

[BWBettas]

I'm 13 and own 2 tanks myself a 26 gallon and a ten gallon oo and a 1 gallon bowl thingymajig with a male betta in it. i have MTS but i told me mum i wanetd ot get rid of them and i think im back into them. all my friends have tanks and one fo them has 7 tanks!.

thing is for me i dont know how to kee them clean and everything wihtout spending a fortune on products that dont really work. how do i keep them clean and everythign ship shape without being at my tank 24/7

 

[trace1]

easiest way to keep them clean is weekly water changes & just clean the side of tank at same time. all i do with mine is use gravel vac on it once 1 week while doing changes. only thing i add to my tanks are dechlorinator. hth

 

[Ethos]

Personally, I think you just need 5 things, which you can get really cheap at wal*mart.
Here they are:
1. Algey Brush
2. Sphion(sp?)
3. 1-5 gallon bucket
4. Aqua safe
5. Stress coat

Thats all you need to have a sucessful aquarium....Your really dont need the fancy stuff, I never used any.

 

[BigC]

Weekly water changes of about one third of the tank for starters.

 

[BWBettas]

its a 26 gallon tank in it before i had:

4 pearl gourami
4 black phantoms
sailfin plec
male & female guppy

is that over stocked or understocked p.s do you think a 13 yr old could do all that stuff above?

 

[Luke_e]

Imo, age isnt important, as long as you can physically caryout the task, and aslong as you have enough knowledge, you could run a full 200g marine (if you had the money that is).
Yea, you should be fine..

 

[BWBettas]

is that under or over stocked i would like to of known plus my tank was upstairs in this house im moving soon ask if i can have it donwstairs near taps ro something so can do water changes

 

[Luke_e]

Sorry not sure if its overstocked or not, someone who knows will reply soon.

 

[BWBettas]

plus... my mum says im too lazy to do it what would really motivate me to do a water change

 

[rachelbatchelor]

All the motivation you should need is.........

Water changes will help keep your fish healthy.

Healthy fish= happy fish

Happy fish tend to have longer lives then stressed fish.

A tank with happy, healthy fish in = happy you!!


It is well worth the effort.


Seriously though. If you don't think that you can cope with looking after the tanks then please rehome some of the fish and make your life easier!

 

[Luke_e]

Your fish living in a clean, healthier and more attractive looking home will motivate you to do water changes. If you dont you will have a dirty tank, unhealthy, slow moving, lifeless and disease prone fish.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

its a 26 gallon tank in it before i had:

4 pearl gourami
4 black phantoms
sailfin plec
male & female guppy

is that over stocked or understocked p.s do you think a 13 yr old could do all that stuff above?

The sailfin plec will grow to 2ft long and needs a 80-100gal tank minimum so is making your tank very overstocked, take the the plec away and your tank is fine, although for livebearer fish(like guppys, mollys, platys and swordtails) you need at least 2-3females per male minimum(although in the case of swordtails keeping more than one male in mixed gender groups is not advised), so you need at least another female to take some of the stress off your current one as male guppys harrass the females alot, which can even lead to death.

 

[Fish_Mike]

You aren't overstocked if you get rid of the pleco. He's a waste machine and will reach about a foot. Everything else should be fine.

Being 13 doesn't mean anything. There a quite a few people your age on here who have tanks like yours.

As for motivating to do water changes. Well i think that's impossible unless you have obssesive compulsive Disorder. The next best thing would be to buy a python. A sort of automatic water changer

Hope this helps

 

[debiasir]

you dont need to spend a fortune to keep a tank clean, i have 2 15 uk gallons

initail purchase:

gravel syphon
algea magnet x 2
2 5 gallon buckets
Total Around £7

my bottle of dechlor lasts around month at a cost of £3

also i have enough white filter pads to last at least a year buy buying sheets of it and not labled filter pads just incase my top layer pads get too diry to be cleaned properly cost around £3 a year.

so not huge amounts of money at all.

 

[collared_drifter]

hi, im thirteen too! lol...
its not that hard to keep alot of tanks, i own 2 55 gallons, 2 10 gallons, and 2 betta tanks all at once... and i have another 55 on its way soon! its not hard at all to keep them all i check for me, i over filter every one of them, so i do a 25 percent water change every week on all of them. all you gotta do really is make 1 hour fish tank time on the weekend and get it over with... were do you live by the way?